Agni trials: By threatening India over test-firing of ICBMs, China has revealed its insecurity

There is something curious about the latest round of confrontation between India and China on the former’s final testing of an intercontinental ballistic missile. It’s not as if that by testing one ICBM, albeit with a capacity to carry a nuclear warhead into Chinese mainland, India has caught up with China’s military might and drew parity with their vastly superior strategic nuclear weaponry. With a GDP five times that of India’s and a defence budget that at $150 billion outstrips India’s by four times, China is bent upon world domination and dreams of replacing US as the next global superpower.

It therefore sounded a little jarring when Chinese media on Thursday indulged in nakedly aggressive posturing over India’s final test-firing of Agni-IV and played its Pakistan card rather openly, warning India that more missile testing will develop into an arms race in south Asia because it won’t shy away from arming Islamabad to match India’s arsenal. Read More…